


First Date

by Lavanya_Six



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Genderswap, Rule 63, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavanya_Six/pseuds/Lavanya_Six
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While her friends waste away the weekend on sunny Ember Island, Crown Princess Zuan is forced to attend a series of interviews with prospective fiancés, including a young man called Mao, the son of Omashu's occupational governor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omoni/gifts).



Princess Zuan tried not to fidget in her formal silk dress and heavy paints. She was only ever really comfortable in armor, feeling nude without its tightness and dependable weight, but tradition dictated royalty dressed in an intricate ceremonial style for betrothal interviews. Zuan absentmindedly scratched at her scalp, irritated by pollen from the fire lilies woven into her hair, but froze when Father threw her a sharp look. He, like her, didn't want to have to sit through these tedious, unending interviews any longer than was necessary. Needing her hair fixed back up by the maids was a delay to be avoided.

Inwardly, Zuan railed against the unfairness of it all. She'd barely been back in the Fire Nation a month and already her father was looking to marry her off to the most politically advantageous candidate. It was true that people of her station didn't have the advantage of love matches but there was something so _mercenary_ about the process. The only time she really got to know her suitors as people was in their five minute scripted walk through the royal gardens, and even then Li and Lo had stressed that she should try to trip them up with politically tricky questions to see if there was a brain behind any of the handsome faces she met.

At least Father had sent off Azula and their friends off to Ember Island for the weekend. Zuan could just imagine the colorful jibes her younger sister would make at her current appearance.

 _Just you wait,_ the crown princess thought. _In a little while, it'll be YOU being married off to some cabinet minister's idiot son, Azula._

Such was the depth of Zuan's inward ruminations that she blanked out on the introductions to the day's latest candidate, only to snap awake at the tail end of the announcement, "...governor of Omashu, and his son Mao."

While the boy's father made empty conversation over the ongoing industrialization of Omashu and the minor but vital role Mao was playing in managing a tank axle factory, Zuan studied her would-be suitor. She could almost imagine that sitting across from her was the most lifelike mannequin she had ever seen. It was two heads taller than her, with long, shiny black hair that contrasted sharply with its ivory skin. Whoever had designed the thing had paid the utmost attention to even the smallest detail. It really was quite impressive.

Oh, and if you stared it long enough, you might notice the mannequin could mime breathing shallowly. That was a neat trick. Maybe it could blink too.

(Mao never did for as long as she watched him that day.)

Zuan had gone through enough of these meetings so far that weekend to sleepwalk through the questions she was supposed to ask Governor What's-His-Name about his son and his family history. Eventually it came time for her and Mao to take their 'private' walk.

As with her other suitors, Zuan disregarded everyone's advice and walked with the boy to her left. Despite the insistence of some of her fashion advisors, Zuan left her scar bare. Covering it up with flesh-toned paint would only make her look like a fool. How her suitors reacted to the sight of it helped screen out which of _them_ were the fools. Most boys weren't willing to look a scarred girl in the face, often fixating on a point over her shoulder when they sat across from each other at the table. During their walks, a few had even maneuvered themselves around to her right. It was disheartening and maddening at the same time, but Zuan hadn't been surprised. At least they didn't get handsy with her like the customers at uncle's teashop, who'd decided that she was a loose woman deserving no respect because she had 'obviously' been defiled and burnt by a Fire Nation soldier.

Mao had unflinchingly looked her in the eye, so at least he had that going for him.

Actually, it was all he had going for him. Whatever questions she asked him were invariable answered in a flat, colorless tone:

"I guess."

"Yeah."

"Whatever."

Irritated with his taciturn manner on top of a day and a half of these pointless candidate interviews - (which were, ancestors and spirits preserve her, only the first step in what could easily be a multi-year process!) - Zuan finally snapped, "I bet you can't say more than two words at once."

"You win."

The flower in her right ear wilted from a sudden heat wave. "It's obvious you don't want to be here any more than I do, so why you'd waste my time by coming?"

"Ordered to."

"By who? Your parents?"

He nodded almost imperceptibly.

"So you do everything your parents tell you? Don't you have the _balls_ \- " the word slipped out in an instant, too fast to snatch back, and Princess Zuan knew the chaperons hovering at the garden's edge would relay that breach of decorum to her father " - to make your own decisions?"

"I don't." They were standing amid green splendor, with baby turtle-ducks babbling in a nearby pond and buttermoths ghosting along on the summer's breeze. Mao reached out and laid a finger on her scar. Zuan reflexively jerked back but his finger stuck to its target, tracing the borderline where hard scar tissue melted into pliable flesh. "You don't."

Zuan's heart drummed against the inside of her ribcage. She slapped his hand away, face flushing with several shades of outrage. _Asshole!_ "I hunted down the Avatar and helped conquer Ba Sing Se because I *chose* to. I could have given up but I didn't. Is there anything _you_ can do besides act like a smug, self-satisfied stoic?"

Mao made a show of considering that question by curling a finger under his strong chin. Finally, he said, "I can actually throw knives pretty well."

"Bwah?"

"See that big apple way up there?" Zuan has too much battlefield experience to blindly follow his finger towards the spot it was pointing, so she kept watching Mao himself as a small knife slid out of his sleeve and fell into his palm. The air around Zuan's fists churned with invisible heat, ready to ignite instantly for self-defense, but, instead of her, Mao's knife struck out at the offending fruit tree.

A speared apple plopped down onto the freshly cut grass. Mao walked over and picked it up. He carved the soft flesh into quarters, then popped one into his mouth to chew.

Zuan stared back at him.

"If you want some," he said lethargically between bites, "you'll have to get your own apple."

Zuan wordlessly reached up and pulled something out of the tarantula-rat's nest that was her hair. Loose raven locks and lilies tumbled down onto her shoulders. Zuan's right hand lashed out.

Her concealed knife twanged audibly as it buried itself into the innocent tree. A newly harvested apple fell and bonked Mao on the head, then rolled to a stop at his feet. Mao had stopped chewing. He stared at the apple, then looked back at her. Zuan couldn't help but smirk at the faint surprise coloring his features. A little emotion, she decided, looked good on him.

After a few moments, she blushed with self-conciousness. "I'm, uh, not... the best... firebender. So I, um, train with knives. I'm not strong enough to be a sword-fighter so... yeah..."

The buzz of insects filled the silence.

"I - I was bored," Mao confessed. "Royal Academy for Boys. Not much to do there."

"Yeah?"

He nodded.

Someone cleared their throat. Zuan and Mao both turned to find one of the royal household's servants standing there, bowing deeply. "Princess, his majesty wishes to remind you that your five minutes are up. The next interview will begin shortly."

With that, the bowing servant backed away.

Zuan looked to Mao and was disappointed to see the cracks in his demeanor had resealed themselves. Both his knife and half-eaten apple were nowhere in sight. Instead he blankly offered Zuan her own apple.

"Princess Zuan," he said, bowing slightly. She took the apple from him, body buzzing with lightning for the first time ever as their fingers briefly touched.

And then he was walking away.

Zuan bit into her apple as she watched Mao go. Juice ran down her chin, smearing her carefully applied make-up. She could have honestly cared less about making her father wait while she had herself touched up.


End file.
